Of Blood and Aether (Harbingers, #1)

by Harper Hawthorne

“He who has been chosen, this star-split soul, shall be the Catalyst to this prophecy of mirrored fates. He is our reckoning. The other, our deliverance. Together, they are our salvation.”

“A Catalyst and a Conduit,” the others chanted. “All and none, all and one. Mirrors, my King. Mirrors. Not one Harbinger, but two—one yet to be reborn! Two fates entangled, another entwined. The Source, it gives and takes and gives and takes and gives and takes. They are life and death. They are the cycle, preserved. They are vengeance and mercy, incarnate.”

Life was a little more frightening when you had something to lose.

“Okay so full disclosure, I’m a lesbian, but… the hot one. You’ll know when you look. Be subtle!”

For me, attraction often developed over a round of drinks and good conversation. I could find beauty in the mundane, so long as the mind was engaging and clever.

Darkness is as inevitable as Shadow in life, and I find that to be more comforting than unsettling, for whatever reason.”

Not when there were people out there who were starved for resources, who were just trying to survive, while the politicians of Atlas lined their pockets and amassed power just for show and ego in their idiotic internal squabbles.

I was never good at pleasantries or telling lies for the sake of other people’s comfort. In truth, there was no reassurance to be found here, nothing sincere that I could give. Nothing true.

which of course came alongside the risk of being both sweaty and perceived by the general public.

And she worked best when she understood the nuance behind every rule, the reasoning behind each step.

the way he’d just said my name like a prayer.

I had never let anyone else in that far, into the room where I slept every night. It felt too personal. Too intimate to sully with someone who meant little to me outside of flesh and release. It could only ever be her.

His eyes gleamed with adoration and something a bit darker as he spoke. “You are,” he whispered. “You’re so fucking beautiful, Arken. It devastates me. You know that, don’t you?”

“The road to Hel is paved with good intentions.”

To see her glistening cunt drip for me like this? The fucking sounds she made as I lowered my mouth to taste her? Oh, this had been worth it all along.

This was rapture. It was ruination. It was everything I had ever fucking wanted, but never once dared to dream of experiencing. Made for me. She was fucking made for me.

Because you’re in love with her. You’re in love with her, and now you have something you’re not willing to lose.

I wanted her heart. I would die for it. I would kill for it. I didn’t deserve it—I could live a thousand lifetimes and still never possibly deserve it, but that wasn’t enough to stop me. Though perhaps it should have been.

Though this newfound vulnerability—this terrifying uncertainty still crashed around my mind as violently as the tides behind me, I also felt something else. A flicker of something so foreign, so unfamiliar that it took me a moment to give it a name. Hope.

“Táieach kyn chroí, myon-Caindélach,” I whispered. I love you, Little Conduit.

Has anyone done a Venn diagram?”